Wednesday December 21, 2011 6:15am TITLE Third Base
Dream Fade took most of the quantity of imagery, but fragmentary aspects remain: I have been traveling on a cross-country type bus for some days; two young, lovely Dream Character women are with me, either long-time friends or befriended on the trip, though apparently they are or have become Quite Friendly. It is night and one of them uses my chest as a pillow, as I realize I am shirtless. Suddenly the tang of days-traveling without shower hits my nostrils, and I suspect it's me.
"I'm sorry," I quietly inquiry of her: "Do I... need a shower?" While clearly she had not been minding, she diplomatically agrees that it'd be okay if I did shower. At this point I suddenly notice the bus is not even moving; we're parked, and as we'd been drowzing we'd only just noticed.
I unobtrusively go to the front to find that we're at some sort of place that most likely I can find a shower. I take a small bag of mine and go in search.
Dream Shift:
In a shopping deparment store environment (very Target'esque), strange and comical things are on sale, one being a vampira-like love doll done up with a dancing pole at one of the check-out register. This is not as high-end as the Living Doll love-dolls, but far more realistic than common love-dolls. I jokingly think it would make a good gift for my friend Brian Byers who is visiting locally (in the dream), but later I notice the display is down.
Another comely Dream Character woman whose backstory Dream Memory tells me has been a member of the Studio Playhouse and a long-time friend of mine. For some reason she and I go off to the side where she silently insists on my "going to Third Base" with her. As we kiss while I Stimulate her with my left hand, her pleasured vocalization become a bit loud, and she fights to keep down her volume, particularly as we're not exactly anywhere private: she's lying on an unused check-out counter. I am almost surprised that suddenly she is naked, considering there was no clothing removal: they were simply no longer being worn, and soon she completely climaxes. Noticing I too am naked, we gaze into each others' faces and I get the distinct impression that while she'd like to continue, that that's as Far as I'm allowed to go, as (this act apparently having been spontaneous on her part), I lack Protection.
She departs through large double doors for what I presume to be the workers' area. I suddenly realize didn't properly thank her (despite no intercourse for me [which 99% of the time is how my dreams go; even this act was farther than my dreams Distracting me from having sex therein], in my waking state I do enjoy, as it were, providing pleasure to my lady sexual partners, and I can "handle myself" [as it were], at a later time...).
I consider texting her my thanks, wondering if that'd be appropriate...

Saturday November 20, 2011 9:15am Nude bathroom runs and snowy parking lots
I have been attending some sort of event, akin to a high school reunion, though all are Dream Characters. The event is over and I am ready to leave, but the parking lot is overrun with snow. It is not "happy light" snow; it is bulky and packed, and in some parts "built up," large round clumps, as though there are "dismantled snowmen," making it tough to cross the tree-lined parking lot on foot.
I make it to the parking lot exit/entrance area, as other cars attempting to leave are stuck just trying to get out of their parking spots. The parking lot exit/entrance is an include when leaving, at an angle, between its road and the parking lot a rise of boulders onto which I climb. Others are there, almost behaving as though the firm snow has been a liquid flood. Inadvertantly, loose rocks fall away from me, nearly bowling over some people, but no one is struck. I apologize as I hear from my left other cries of concern.
The few people with me and I look up the incline and see a massive amount of dirt and smaller rocks careen down the road towards the parking lot.
"Okay, that not because of me," I point out rather obviously; its out of sight source being far away from us.
Looking across to the far side of the parking lot is simply a door. Carrying with me a magazine, I make my way through and through to find myself inside a building the hallways through which Dream Memory guides me hastily to find a bathroom as now I Really Have To Go. After a time I suddenly notice I am completely unclothed, but don't recall not having clothes out in the snow: right now my main goal is to get to a bathroom. As I pass surprised people in the hallway, I use the magazine to cover what could offend, but one nurse-like female is more surprised that others as I pass her and take a turn down another corridor.
"Excuse me," she starts out simply, which she continues to repeat as I realize she is following me, possibly even pursuing me. Her repeated words become more insistant, but my bathroom needs drive me forward. Although convinced she cannot keep up with me, now the hallways are becoming cluttered with stuff: small end table like furnishings becoming obstacles that slow me down. I now have to Hold Myself to keep from messing up the floor, making avoiding these items, each of which could easily fall over if I knock into them too hard. They also slow me down so the (prudish?) woman's "Excuse me!" calls are still close enough I know she might get to the bathroom moments after I arrive, to have me "trapped" therein.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011 7:15am TITLE The Talking Dead; major crossover/s
From outdoors, I enter a small corner room, almost like an informal doctor office waiting room, done within a refurbished home. Dream Memory "reasures" me that undead ghouls a la Night of the Living Dead are normal occurances; that a la Return of the Living Dead, they are cognitive, and similar to True Blood, somehow they are "accepted" by society. However, it is also acceptable to slay one if they lose control and attack, and with the Night of the Living Dead rules, destroying the brain kills the ghoul (in Night of the Living Dead the correct term ghoul is used; somehow the inaccurate term "zombie" came to be used in later aspects of the concept, which is a misnomer as zombies are "resurrected dead" by dark shamans, and they don't eat people: it is ghouls that eat flesh).
There are several people milling about, and as I enter the corridor, a few start to get aggressive. I back into the small room, one of them nearly taking a bite from my left arm. I manage to crack its skull into the sharp corner of a fireplace mantel naer the door. Another comes for me: I shove it down onto the wood corner of a chair armrest.
A wide-eyed female with an insane Conrad Veight Man Who Laughs smile comes at me, struggling with me enough than my right index finger runs along the top of her teeth. "Got you," she smiles hidously, unaware she has not managed to break my skin.
"Not enough," I point out, managing to reach down, get hold of a decorative fireplace poker, and crush the top of her head.
Sitting in another chair turns out to be an actual vampire, who has decided enough is enough and has choosen to end his existance. He requests I assist. One of the decorative fireplace tools is a small hammer with a wooden handle. The hammer part falls off, leaving what comes across enough as a small tin stake. For some reason he wants it thrust through the back of his throat via his mouth.
I hold it up level to his mouth, and remember this is not how one slays a vampire. I zip it down and into his chest, piercing his heart. Thankfully he does not "explode" a la True Blood, but, startled, falls back onto a small chez lounge and goes dark, and bursts into black ash a la the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series.

Tuesday August 23, 2011 6:39am TITLE Authorized Vandals
I am working on a film or TV project; I am near a parking meter with a Dream Character friend. There's a security guard who keep "gently" taunting us, threatening to do damage to our cars, even having invited people to come trash said cars. While I cannot recall exactly what he says (the context being his flaunting his power and "authority" over us, and our being powerless to stop him), I finally reach a limit and standing, I uncharacteristically shout, "Enough...!"
The security guard stops his smiling and backs off, but beyond him I see in a strangely shaped parking lot, numerous pre-teens with baseball bats and such damaging cars.
There is no noticeable "edit" that I am now inside a car parked at the curb. Still, my ire now risen, I exagerate to my friend, "Time t'kill some kids...", simply meaning I mean to make sure my car isn't damaged.
I open the car door at my right and emerge, and head over to the parking lot. It's design seems to be in two segments, with a building separating the two sections of parking lot. I enter the one on the right in which seems the girls have not begun smashing things.
I decide to go behind the building so to come into the left parking lot from the rear, any of the girls who wish to retreat will have an easy exit.
As I pass the lot at my right and the building on my left, I manage to deduce that my car is safe, as Dream Memory tells me I parked it elsewhere several blocks away, not in crew parking.
Once past the house, it seems simply to be a yard: beyond the parking lot. To get to the parking lot I must cross what seems to be a coy-pond sans coy. It is against a brick wall about seven feet height, with three "stepping stones," as it were, but distance wise, it's as though there should be four and the second one being missing. Like a aspect of Ninja Warrior, I step onto the first stone, but strangely do not make it to the next, all but stepping into the water which goes up to my sternum. I climb onto the next stop to continue out, when my phone rings, to my horror, realizing my phone was under the water and could be damaged, but pulling it out I find it still works okay.

Monday August 15, 2011 5:43am TITLE Wheelchair fishing
I am in a wheelchair, seemingly outside. I come across a woman also in a wheelchair who is reading a travel guide according to which, one (in a wheelchair) must "take a running 'jump'," as it were, to clear onto the sidewalk to which she has reached. I look over and it indeed is a bit of a rise, about knee high, but beyond the cement curb is dirt (along with some bits of yellow-dry tall grass), not a cement sidewalk.
I get out of my chair and slowly step up onto the dirt, and see the patch not only does not continue, it stops at a wall. Essentially it's a strange, seamless Dream Shift; I am actually inside a large building, which may or may not be NBC (New York style), and Dream Memory "explains" that I work for a variety show along the lines of Saturday Night Live but not the 30 Rock style.
I am to be filmed for a music video. With the wheelchair, a small Yorkie dog in my arms, another man pushes the chair around backwards: my legs up under his arms so from my vantage point it's like a reverse wheelbarrow move, as I'm on my back in the chair seat. Beyond the walking man, wearing a black ski cap atop his head, I can see massive New York city type buildings, with plasma billboards that show the footage being shot (possibly to be visible in the video?): I can see close-ups of me and of the dog.
Later (sort of a like a Dream Shift but more like Time Has Passed), I have been fishing with a Dream Character friend. Two long black cable lines have rached down from a very high spot into a river. I have been instructed to let both cables fall, and that that is how they would be retreivable in the river. I rest on my back on a wide, strong section of a outcropping tree, and let each of the cables go, and watch as they go into the water. At first it seems like they fall in slow motion, but I deduce it is more about the height and distance than velocity.
I feel blissfully calm and content lying on my back in the tree branch/es. It is soft so I figure it must be softly moss-covered. I am strongly tempted to go to sleep right there, despite wondering if I would move in my sleep and fall, or fall on waking, making me wonder how deep the river would be if I fell. I then begin to wonder how I came to be in the tree as I cannot recall climbing up to where I am.

Sunday July 03, 2011 4:43am Painful transformation trigger
I approach an up-escalator, at as I get along side it at its base (so it's at my left), I slow down, as though the regular floor is moving, making me walk in place. I speed up enough to loop around to my left and get onto the rising steps.
The escalator steps have had someone painting footprints of classic-movie stars. At the top, I go to my right to a long office space, meeting up with a couple who are waiting for me.
The two stand next to each other on a slightly raised platform, each on a small disc like a Star Trek: TOS transporter pad. Dream Memory has me blend in with the storyline as the Third in their group circle, as it were. I am to help their transformation (along with the tons of other dream imagery prior to this aspect, Dream Fade has removed Into What, those possibly "just" wolves), which apparently they've not done for some time. To trigger their transformation entails attaching a very small metal clip to the bottom of the woman's lower "eyelid," as it were, pulling it down to attach to her cheek. While I am perfectly fine that her eyeball has numerous off-white, nearly yellow tri-circles (in leiu of single irises), almost like apple bloosoms in shape (albeit never looking at the man, I know his eyes are the same way), I have more of a problem that I am stretching her skin, and we both know it's painful but necessary. The man at her left cannot assist (or do it himself) for some reason. I come close to recognizing I am dreaming by verbally pointing out I am doing this, not someone else (i.e., I am not watching someone else do this). I pull down on the eye skin and pull it down and attach it with the cheek skin.

Sunday June 26, 2011 4:53am What little is left
Of late I've been having LOTS of vivid dream imagery, but annoyingly, almost immediately mostly lost to Dream Fade on waking.
I may or may not be being pursued but I run full speed into a building that turns out to be a large, hallway twisting shopping mall. Dream Memory tell me it is in the midwest; I believe I'll apparently be safe if I find a specific restaurant about which I "know" (e.g., to which apparently I'm running).
Dream Shift:
In a building similar to the Studio Playhouse, a Dream Character and I deduce the place used to be a train station and a telegraph broadcasting site, what with the tall antenna tower connected to the bulding, if disused.
Outside, I see and (barefoot), I approach my parents who are in a large double bed on a slightly sloped, lightly snow-covered hill; they are happily conversing and are too busy in their conversation to notice me. On the crest of the small rise freely walks Dumble, who does see me and runs up to greet me. In my hand I have a new tag for him which I attach, as I follow him up towards the crest of the small rise.

Tuesday April 05, 2011 7:29am The Boys are Back
After tons of vivid imagery, Dream Fade takes them as I wake; but the dream/s conclude/d with my being aboard a bus that reaches my stop.
"C'mon, Champ," I say, and a very young and svelt version of the late chocolate lab gets up (still as slowly as he did his final years), and gets off the bus via its rear side door with me (I stand on the grass and watch him slowly emerge and hop down onto the grass as well).
Though he is unleashed, I have his red leash, and he comes over and I click it onto his collar. I notice in my hand two leash handles, the second indeed going to the collar of the beautiful yellow Dumbledore, who uncharacteristically is standing on the hood of a large black classic car of some sort.
"Dumbledore..." I say with more amusement that admonishment. "C'mon, you soap bubble," I add, as I'd not heard any sound of his having hopped up onto the metallic hood. He hops down and the three of us end up sitting at a patio restaurant.
As we wait service, we notice someone a few yards away emerge from the restaurant and very obviously is attempting to take our photo with a 35mm camera, but he is pretending not to by holding it very low to the ground, but clearly aiming it at us. As I puzzle as to why someone would want to photograph us, I also notice the photographer is comedian Paul Reiser.
"Excuse me," I say firmly. "What are you doing?"
"Who me? What; nuthin'," Reiser starts in his standard verbal delivery, awkwardly trying to convince me he's not taking our photo.
Dream Memory implies that someone I am not Famous Enough to warrant people considering me an actual "celebrity" of sorts. I realize I'm not against having my photo taken as much as at least the courtesy of being asked, though for some reason I decide to point out he's not provided me with a Release Form to take (as in, steal, though I don't use the word aloud) my image.

Tuesday April 05, 2011 7:09am Mature Universal
Apparently somewhere in Universal CityWalk, I am in some sort of cafeteria with my brother; he has just returned from a new store called Mature Universal, entrance to which is via submitting one to five used CDs or DVDs (sans cover: just the disc), which one places into one of five slots atop a white box. My brother is reading their catalog, on the back cover of which is a small listing for Strictly Background, the Cast Photo Poster of which is in black and white. I try to see what the item description says, but my brother indicates he is not allowed to show the catalog to anyone: one must acquire a catalog on their own, by going to the store itself.
Somehow I am in the store, which is rather crowded with 20 and 30 somethings, all acting as though the store is its own Comic-Con or such. People literally bow reverently to the store's married-couple owners, who announce a massive live role playing game with Risk overtones. The man describes it the way Jeff Probst describes a challenge on Survivor. Referring to a large model gameboard or sorts on the floor, the "game" involves something that sounds like a capture the flag object, but eventually it's as though the game has no objective. The "teams," such as they are, are to traverse a series of obstacles, such as steering galleons (ships, not Wizard World currency), across a large lake, a few other aspects I cannot recall, but it concludes with their having to avoid T-Rexes as they get to some marsh where the players would be turned into clams, then transformed into oysters, a pearl in each of which with which to turn back into their human selves. All throughout the description, small models on the game board simulate the action, including but not limited to small game pieces running around the T-Rex models slowly pursuing them. The game is announced to begin; I watch as the loudly enraptured throng rushes off to "play" this complicated mess of a challenge, and I wonder what would entire them to even do this.
Dream Shift:
Outside on the street, I watch as six or so scientists stand at a street corner (apparently they created the game). Suddenly a school-bus coloured very dark green pulls up, blocking the view; as it pulls away only two scientists are still standing there. Somehow I realize the group are hoping for work, and those that left were "hired," a la illegals at a Home Depot.

Tuesday March 29, 2011 8:57am Crazies, et al
Something has caused several nearby people to go or seem insane (thankfully not homocidally so, but more overly mischievous and vandalous [though I doubt "vandalous" is actually a word]...).
I sit in the passenger side back seat of a car and hope they don't see me; I managed to roll up the window as one large guy in a blue football jersey is carrying a bucket of yellow paint. One of them see me, and tries to get in, but I've locked all the doors. However, I glance over and see the football jersey guy is sitting in the drivers seat. I cannot figure out how he did that, the door was locked, and there was no sound of the door opening or closing. I give him my strongest authoritative voice to leave the car, but he's too giddy to care.
I cannot let this go unchallenged, so somehow I open the door/s, grab hold of both of his ears and pull, the action quickly persuading him to stand up. Somehow this works, even without my actually opening either door, it's as though now both driver's side doors are open in a way that I do not let go of his ears to get him to stand up outside the car.

Sunday March 06, 2011 5:47am Lucid Training
I am on a sofa with a woman who keeps morphing back and forth and in between of two of my favourite ex girlfriends. She laments never having seen The Wizard of Oz (the fact in real life I know both have seen it). I point out that a friend recently sent me the DVD of it. She smiles that she can finally see it. Later (not to be confused with a Dream Shift):
The Gold Line type train I'm riding comes to a stop and I step out. I expect the regular platform but it seems to be a regular sidewalk. As I glance behind to my left at what I expect to be the side of the glass windowed train, I see a massive, two-storey tall gun-metal grey structure, similar to the MTA MetroLink commuter train but completely flat-solid and painted over.
As I notice the tall thing with surprise, it reverses direction as though it had just had its last stop, but it is not on rails. It actually goes oblique to the street and the multi-car transport heads back the way it came. I take a few steps and realize my hands are empty. I cannot recall if I had with me either my blue bag or small shopping bag/s I sometimes use for smaller items. Either way, I realize, if I did have something with me, I didn't have it now.
As I walk along my mind tries to reconnect with the concept of whether I had with me a bag, and as it cannot reconcile the memory, I suddenly wonder whether I am dreaming. I manage to remember that one method of uncovering whether you are dreaming is to stare at one's own hand for some reason. I do so, and sure enough, the fingers not only start off as mismatched, but they begin to contort rather horrifically, (similar to the main transformation sequence in the recent Wolfman remake), albeit without any sensation and/or pain to me. I deduce that I am dreaming, and I take notice of my surroundings, and realize how staggeringly vivid is everything, particularly colours.
I continue to walk, maintaining my hold on the Fact I am dreaming, though while remembering I should be able to Control the dream if I am Lucid Dreaming, for some reason I do not make any attempt as I continue walking, focusing on the Fact I am dreaming.

Tuesday March 01, 2011 7:43am Modern Families
I am in an empty grocery store with "Gloria" of the sitcom Modern Family. Somehow she and I are longtime friends, and have been talking while somewhere nearby is a large event at which her by-marriage relatives are all attending, and apparently we broke away either to talk and/or just get away from all the people and their [always hilarious] drama.
She and I are laughingly teasing each other, at one point she implies that people think everything in South America is bigger. I cannot help notice her low-cut cleavaged dress, which tightly displays her impressive rear, and I point out in her case she's both the exception and the rule.
She finds this very funny and embraces me. Not only can I feel all her impressive curves, I come to the realization I am only wearing my black bathrobe... and it's probably less closed than it should be.
She notices as well and, seeing What's Available to her, she suddenly says, "Why not? You want to Do It..?" Noticing my surprised look she continues, "My husband and I have not slept together in months; who has to know?"
She quickly kneels and begins to Touch Me. I note we're in an albeit empty grocery store, that still quite easily someone could enter and discover us.
"Wait: I've a better idea," I tell her, taking her hand, bringing her to her feet, and leading her quickly down the back section of the store to the opposite corner where Dream Memory has me know of a Guest Room of sorts. We enter, and there is a small room with a big enough bed, opposite a wall with two freight elevators that I know do not stop at this floor, even though the light of the passing elevator cars can be seen passing.
She is thrilled and prepares to get into bed and I notice we don't have condoms (if only I was aware it was a dream and such would not have been needed...).
I assure her I'll be right back and, albeit now even without my robe, I head out, the hallways outside the room now being of a large hotel.
As I come around the corner of a hallway near some janitorial supplies and an up-ended mattress, the far door from the hall opens and, sure enough, in walks a little girl in a frilly party dress.
I am able to duck behind the mattress, which is small so it covers me from the neck down, but the girl has now seen me and seems puzzled. I know that the corner behind me is only a couple of yards away, but if I make the break for it, my nakedness will be revealed, and the girl will return back through the door and raise the alarm with the adults.
The door opens again, and a large contingent of children emerge, along with my mother. They are headed to a doorway across the hallway from me (I'm at the left wall, the door is to my right, a few doors up, so their using it has me still covered). Mom sees me and somehow immediately deduces that I am leaning up against the mattress to hide that I am not wearing clothes. She quickly shepherds the children through the door, through which I can see is a stairwell. As she goes through and closes the door behind her, I go to head back to Gloria as an External Sound wakes me up...

Friday February 25, 2011 5:47am Horse accidents
A friend shows me video footage he took at some famous bowl canyon, in which during some Wild West horse-drawn tour, a horse panics and hurls through a wooden barrier (a single rod at rein-tie height), pulling the passenger drawn carriage behind it. The horse and carriage drop about twenty feet to an outcropping of rock and land flat on top of it, the momentum however, causes numerous passengers to fall off, and continue falling beyond the outcropping.
Dream Shift:
I am staying at some sort of house that is being "taken over," as it were, by some film production crew for some project. My stuff is all moved out of my room, which is being used for the shoot. In the next room over are a group of nuns, the sort with the smaller habits on black and white dress, not the full-on "burka habit" like outfit.
There is also a balcony or sorts outside, which overlooks aspects of Italy, possibly Rome but I'm not sure. Apparently traveling with me is my previous girlfriend Kerian; we find ourselves discussing a serial-killer movie franchise (that it would seem I'd written, and which had been produced), and my wish to end the series, or at least not work on it directly anymore. Outisde, she watches as I step into a trap with closing spikes. As they move in towards me, she points out the spikes are so close together, I won't be able to avoid them. I reply that that's the whole point. Once the killer is dead [!?], I won't have to worry about sequels. As I am telling her this, I am Watching Myself as the spikes begin penetrating my throat and body, but it's like watching myself as a character on the TV series Archer. (As always, with dream-injuries I experience no pain.)
Kerian moves off and (inexplicably no longer within the spikes), I follow her. I catch up as she moves through a crowd of people that give the impression we're on USC campus. We continue to discuss the series (in that the series can continue without my input, as with the Saw series), specifically in my series the most recent film in which we concurred a young handsome man to be the culprit as he was so obviously the one to be the least suspected.
Later she and I are taking a tour along the high canyon ridge, and again there are horse accidents. Of the horses that fall from the trail along with their single riders, one horse lands on a small ledge just out of our reach. The tour group for some reason is sitting or lying along the trail. Just in front of us, the tour guide and some college-age female girl make jokes not only about the horse riders falling to their deaths, but inexplicably, about me as well. Furious, Kerian crawls forward to the tour guide and literally threatens (albeit veiled), that she will throw him off the ridge herself if he continues to diss me. Noting she is not bluffing or joking, the now fearful tour guide and the girl immediately cease their comments.

Monday January 24, 2011 5:40am New room and mistaken overtures
I am having a conversation with a mother and daughter set of Dream Characters. It is night, they are in a large bed above me, as I am sleeping on a small air mattress on the floor at the foot of their bed. The adult daughter is deaf but can read lips. Both women and I share the same interest in the paranormal, and we've been discussing it. The mother does much of the talking, but the daughter is able to speak as well; for her to understand me I have to enunciate.
At one point as I'm speaking I notice the two have drifted off to sleep. Wow, I think to myself. I much have certainly been riveting.
I prepare to go to sleep when I hear the deaf girl call out softly, asking for "Michael." Her hand extends from the bed, and I take it. She leaves the bed, quietly so not to disturb her sleeping mother, and slowly straddles her naked body atop mine, albeit not removing the covers from me, so said covers are between us.
Although I lie perfectly still wondering where this is going, not surprisingly, a predictable aspect of my body begins to get aroused. She lowers her face and our foreheads touch, but she makes no overt moves. I give her a polite, reassuring peck-kiss on the bridge of her nose.
Even with the lights dim I sense her face darkening with seething rage and fury. Although confused as to her intensions, I instantly recognize I've crossed a line. I hastily bring up my hands for her to see, and I stress, "No! That's not what I meant!"
She relaxes, much to my relief.
Dream Fade:
The next day at work (an office environment), a Sunday's colour comic strip is passed around by the men, in which it reflects the attitude of woman metaphorically stabbing men in the back in various manners.
Dream Shift:
My clothes have been dirtied with thick mud and badly need laundering. Generally I await for my friend to leave for the day so my dried-mud clothes sit in a small pile with the rest of my things from the early-January Housing Kick-Out Crisis. Later I learn my friend is having a guest stay who'll be using the room I'd been allotted. I notice where sat my computer is a large bed. "Where th'heck did this come from?" I ask aloud, as also all of my stuff is gone. I find that all my stuff has been unceremoniously dumped into a front room of the house, my little air mattress rolled up (though not entirely deflated), my encrusted clothing in a dumped pile.

Sunday January 23, 2011 7:33am
Bad taxicabs and fake bloodbaths
I arrive at a town square of some sort. In a small car-port of sorts, with a stone table in its center, a man done up as almost ancient Bagdad robes is signing an autograph in a magazine while verbally insisting his being a famous actor to the owner of the issue. Also done up slighty Arab or Bedoin style robes, the signer's apparent daughter seems to be a helpless waif, and (with a coy British accent), she manages to aquire from the magazine owner a few dollars for the signature. The owner relents and gives her a few singles, but as his doubts grow, the girl becomes beligerent and all but chases him off, her British accent gone.
I pass this confrontation and cross the courtyard and meet up with some Dream Character friends. For some reason we plan to infultrate some villianous gang so as to bring them down. We enter a door at the far corner, go up some stairs but the door is ajar; never a good sign. The two men enter and gasp in horror. As I enter they are farther in, aghast at some sort of vicious killings that have taken place. A hand lies on the floor; one of the men goes to touch it.
"No no, don't touch it!" I quietly exclaim at him. "Don't touch anything: fingerprints!" They continue in as I look at the hand, cut off several inches beyond the wrist, and I notice it is hollow. I point out to the men that it's fake, and that we'd best leave.
We split up, and I head down through the rest of the building to depart from a different exit. My phone chimes to indicate a VoiceMail message (a function my actual phone does not have, nor does my phone normally have a small red button through which to immediately access my voice mail). I press the red button and it is Jeff Olan Casting, notifying me I have a gig the next day for Man On Fire 2.
I am concerned that it may be an early calltime, but the information continues, giving noon calltimes to various people. Jeff gets to mentioning me, and it goes silent.
No no no, I worry, that the message cut off and I cannot get the information.
Suddenly I hear someone in the background saying to Jeff, "Say it, say it..."
Jeff had paused, out of simultaneous embarressment and amusement (he's also trying not to laugh), indicating I am playing a grandmother... Listening to the recording, I figure Pffft: I've done stranger gigs.
I have a piece of paper that has strange sigils on it. I wonder whether the printed word is gone and we're going back to hieroglyphics. I get back to whether the man and young woman are scamming for money, his giving fake autographs, et al. A taxi-cab is waiting for me, and the autograph man provides me with three tribal shields that he places in the back seat for me. I sit up front with the cabbie, but after a while he drifts so far to the left as to freak me out. Soon he is all but going up on the left curb; thankfully there are no oncoming cars and the long stretch of road.
"What are you doing?!" I shout, grabbing the wheel, turning it to return us to the right lane. "We not in [effing] England...!"
Finally I demand he pull over and let me out; reluctantly he does so as I accuse him of being drunk. I get out and retrieve from the back seat the surprisingly light-weight shields. The driver is fumbling about, and I await his daring to charge me for the ride. Instead he gives me a handful of money, which I presume is to keep me from notifying anyone about his driving. I take it and walk away, the area closely resembling Claremont Avenue in Montclair [New Jersey] as it reaches Bloomfield Avenue. I walk in the directions we've come, so south on "Claremont," the shields under my arm as I glance at the "money" the cabbie gave me. The notes are not uniform. One is a "new" ten dollar bill, with very different fonts than with which we're familiar. Another seems to be a money order already made out with my name using very good handwriting, though I neglect to notice the amount.